African Sect Wants Their Own Pope

Posted by Jim Newman on August 14th, 2013 – Comments Off – Posted in religion

While I usually hear about how many Africans want to damn gays and exclude women from ecclesiastic duties RNS provides news that African Roman Catholics want a pope that allows marriage.

Schismatic Roman Catholic priests, who left the church to claim their right to marry, are now asking for an “African pope” to lead them.

The priests say they regret their former church is “allergic” to change. They believe priestly celibacy is neither rooted in the teachings of Jesus nor in the work of his apostles, who were married. And they insist celibacy does not work in an African context.

Their leader is wacky.

Former Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo who married a Korean acupuncturist in a 2001 celebration sponsored by the Unification Church and presided by its late founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, serves as “African patriarch” of a number of church groups affiliated with his movement.

It’s not a huge movement.

Since then, the number of priests leaving the church to marry and rear children has grown. There are an estimated 300,000 members affiliated with Milingo’s movement across Africa.

There’s more.

In marrying, the priests believe they are Africanizing Christianity. They are also open to shunned practices such as polygamy and women’s leadership, said Njogu.

“We must realize, for example, the lack of children is the worst evil for man in the African tradition,” said Njogu who teaches comparative theology at Kenya Methodist University.

In 2011, Njogu established the Restored Universal Apostolic Church. The same year he was installed the church’s bishop by Milingo in a ceremony attended by 15 other married priests. Within two years, RUAC had more than 3,000 members in Kenya alone.

Everyone is outing everyone these days.

In March this year, the Rev. Anthony Musaala, a Ugandan Catholic priest, shocked the church when he wrote a letter published in the Ugandan press saying that many bishops and priests in the country had failed the celibacy test.